Zuma also twisting the history of Eskom

2015-01-22

Adv Anton Alberts

Information which the FF Plus has obtained on the supply of electricity in the nineties again confirms that president Jacob Zuma’s increasing efforts to twist history is nothing other than a desperate attempt to hide the ANC’s doleful failure as a government, Adv. Anton Alberts, the parliamentary spokesperson on Energy for the FF Plus says.

“In the process he feeds off white’s sense of guilt by playing the race card every time, while it is clear that the ANC itself should carry the blame electricity supply could not properly reach black people in the nineties,” Adv. Alberts said.

Zuma said last month that South Africa’s electricity supply problems was a product of apartheid and government could therefore not be blamed for the current problems, such as power disruptions and rolling black-outs.

He said the supply network was constructed to serve only a specific race. When the ANC inherited Eskom from the previous government it only supplied electricity to the white minority.

According to Adv. Alberts the opposite is true and Eskom was excellently placed by 1994 to provide the whole country with electricity. It was part of its planning to extend electricity to all black neighbourhoods and it was only the actions of the ANC which violently prohibited services from being delivered to black people.

“Information in my possession shows that Eskom had a power surplus of 3 000 megawatts in 1994, with an additional 4 000 megawatt which could have been delivered by Majuba from 1999 onward.

“At that time electricity supply lines had already been laid to the majority of black areas, but the instability and the danger zones which the ANC had created with its protest actions, resulted in electricity installations not being fully set in place.

“Where a service was however delivered, there was nearly no talk of payments due to the culture of non-payment for services, the effects of which can be seen today still. A good example is Soweto where on average R10 billion is written off annually.

“Add to this a huge nest of theft and corruption over the past twenty years of which the details will shortly become clear and it is obvious at whose door Eskom’s problems should be laid,” Adv. Alberts said.